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Judge rules that architect Valerio Olgiati’s social media comment about project was not defamation

2024-02-02T11:23:00-05:00

A judge in Virginia has dismissed a defamation counterclaim in a case involving two architects. The case involves Swiss architect Valerio Olgiati versus Markus Breitschmid, an architect and architecture professor at Virginia Tech, and is being heard in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia. As we previously reported, Olgiati has served as Kenzo Tange Chair at the Harvard GSD.

The origins of the case stem from a dispute between Olgiati and Breitschmid over a house designed and built in Virginia. The two architects have known each other since 2006 and have collaborated on several projects, including co-publishing books.

Related on Archinect: California passes new copyright protection law for publicly-available architectural drawings. Image: Evgeniy Surzhan/Unsplash

Having previously discussed the prospect of designing a house together, Breitschmid contacted Olgiati in 2020 about his intention to build a house on a property in Riner, Virginia. According to court ...

Kanye West's favorite architect is drawing some seriously high praise

2021-09-21T15:15:00-04:00

“For most of us, architecture is a profession of compromise [...] We are service people, turned on and off by the client, not so terribly different from window washers. But Valerio is different. He believes in the physical substance of architecture, not the impression — that something should not just look interesting but be interesting. That makes him incredibly important to our field.”

The ever-famous Valerio Olgiati is also a favorite of Kanye West, whose splashy architectural tastes have made headlines of late, and for whom the Swiss architect is said to be designing an underground Wyoming home, among other projects. The 44-year-old rapper even reached out to him for input on his recent album Donda.

“He says I am Picasso, and his job is to buy land so that I can create,” Olgiati told the NYT Style Magazine. “I have never had anyone who appreciates so much what I do.”

Olgiati previously served as the Kenzo Tange Chair at the Harvard GSD. T Magazine has a lengthy profile of the prolific architect here.

Valerio Olgiati offers an alternative to Harvard GSD expansion

2019-06-07T18:10:00-04:00

This article has been updated from the original version, making it more clear that this is an alternative proposal to the winning proposal by H&dM.

Though Herzog and de Meuron recently made clear that they have won the bid to expand the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the design competition entry offered by Valerio Olgiati provides an alluring alternative to what things could have been.

View this post on Instagram _ Harvard GSD Gund Hall Expansion, Cambridge #valerioolgiati #harvardgsd
A post shared by VALERIO OLGIATI (@valerioolgiati) on Jun 7, 2019 at 12:05am PDT
View this post on Instagram _ Harvard GSD Gund Hall Expansion, Cambridge #valerioolgiati #harvardgsd
A post shared by VALERIO OLGIATI (@valerioolgiati) on Jun 6, 2019 at 2:03am PDT

His studio's Instagram recently uploaded three renders of the alternative design, including one featuring a triangular-shaped addition to the school's main building, designed by John Andrews and completed ...